Inset faces along line
From an already created mesh, you can relatively easily add plates using this modifiers stack:


Subdivision surface with &quot;simple&quot; option so that corner are not rounded but only in order to add more geometry so that the plates can bind

Shrinkwrap to the base model. The preferred options should be here mode: &quot;project&quot;, cull faces: &quot;none&quot;, direction: &quot;negative&quot; and the wanted offset from the plane surface

Solidify in order to have rims joining the plates to the base mesh

Edge split to sharpen the previous modifier


As you can see in the gif above, this allow to model the plate with few geometry. But the technics is not perfect: it is sometimes difficult to keep straight edges.
You can also pile several meshes with the same modifiers stack (as visible on the right part above).

PS: I'm aware that this won't solve all the needed work to obtain a finalized plane model...